Qatar won the silver medal in the men’s skeet team event on the fourth day of the ISSF shooting World Cup in New Delhi on Monday.
At the Dr Karni Singh Shooting Range, Qatari team, comprising London Olympic bronze medallist Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah, Cairo Shotgun World Cup men’s skeet bronze medallist Rashid Hamad and world No. 45 Ali Ahmed al-Ishaq, finished runners up behind the Indian team of Gurjoat Khangura, Mairaj Ahmad Khan and Angad Vir Singh Bajwa. India won the final 6-2.
Qatar team had topped the qualification stage, but in the final, India proved a cut above. The hosts – Khan, Khangura and Bajwa – shot impressively in the final, missing just three targets en route to a 6-2 win. India’s men had finished second in its qualification with an aggregate score of 503, behind Qatar’s 507 and ahead of Kazakhstan’s 501.
All three in the Indian men’s team hit 15 out of 16 targets as they overcame a poor start to win the final. Al-Ishaq was in terrific form for Qatar, hitting all 16 targets, but his two teammates missed three each.
This was Qatar’s second medal in the competition after three-time Dakar Rally champion al-Attiyah’s bronze medal in the individual skeet on Sunday.
In the women’s final, India’s Parinaaz Dhaliwal, Karttiki Singh Shaktawat and Ganemat Sekhon won the silver medal after losing to Kazakhstan’s Rinata Nassyrova, Olga Panarina and Zoya Kravchenko 4-6 in the final. The India women topped the qualification with 341, ahead of Kazakhstan’s shooters, who aggregated 327.
Kravchenko, who had won the silver medal in the women’s skeet individual event, losing to Amber Hill in a shoot-off, was once again in fine form and led the Kazakh team well with 15 successful shots.
Panarina though was the surprise package for the Kazakhs, hitting the target 15 times. She managed to cover up for Nassyrova who had only 12 successful shots.
For the Indian team, Dhaliwal outshot her two compatriots who were part of the individual women’s Skeet final. She managed to hit the target 15 times.
By contrast, Sekhon and Shaktawat struggled to find their form. Shaktawat, who had finished fourth in the individual event, had 13 successful shots while bronze medallist Sekhon ended up hitting the target 13 times as well.
Yesterday was a fruitful day for host India as they won three gold medals. In all, India won five medals yesterday, to take their tally to 14 medals in the World Cup in which competition is being held in rifle, pistol, and shotgun events.
Indians began the day by winning the 10m air rifle mixed team event, followed by the 10m air pistol mixed team competition, before the skeet men’s team struck gold in the final event of the day. India also won silver in the women’s skeet team competition as well as a bronze in the 10m air pistol mixed team event.
The first final of the day pitted India’s former world number one pairing, Elavenil Valarivan and Divyansh Singh Panwar, against Hungary’s champion rifle shooter Istvan Peni and Denes Eszter, who is ranked ninth in the world and won bronze in the individual women’s 10m air rifle in this World Cup.
As expected, it was a closely fought encounter, with both pairs tied 10-10 at one stage, before Elavenil and Divyansh broke away with some world-class performance, to get a 16-10 result in their favour. Earlier, the USA had won bronze, beating Poland 17-15 in the bronze medal match.
In the day’s second final, India’s young pistol aces Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary began tentatively, but eventually found their groove to put it across Iran’s Golnoush Sebghatollahi and Javad Foroughi 16-12, in the 10m air pistol mixed team competition. Foroughi had earlier won the individual gold in men’s 10m air pistol on Saturday.
The bronze medal in the event also went to India, when Yashaswini Deswal and Abhishek Verma beat the Turkish pair Sevval Tarhan and Ismail Keles 17-13 in the bronze medal match.